Re: Wishlist of apps to port?

Hello Ethan,

What about those apps related to the Cocotron project?
Maybe we could also try to port them to GNUstep?

- ComicLife (a comic reader)
- ShelSpace (a book shelf and reader)


On 2025-09-23 02:50:11 +0200 Ethan C <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've always thought that it would be good to try to port macOS 
> applications 
> to GNUstep, for a few reasons:
> 
>   * It shows that GNUstep is complete enough to port real applications
>   * It helps show us in which areas we are weak or strong at
>   * It could potentially get us new users, especially for users who 
> are
>     migrating from macOS to GNU/Linux or who use multiple operating
>     systems regularly
> 
> The current wishlist on the wiki does not really have many good ideas 
> for 
> existing applications to port, so I looked for some high-quality 
> Objective-C 
> + AppKit applications that might be interesting (see the wishlist 
> below). I'd 
> like to hear your thoughts.
> 
> So far, I think that iTerm2 would probably be one of the most complex 
> things 
> to do, but it would probably be quite popular. TextMate was formerly 
> extremely popular, but is not as popular anymore as the v2 rewrite 
> took much 
> longer than expected. SubEthaEdit is quite innovative, but was 
> quickly 
> overtaken in popularity by TextMate.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ethan
> 
> 
>   Wishlist of porting Mac apps
> 
> This is mostly open-source Mac applications written in AppKit and 
> Objective-C, which are either currently popular or were popular in 
> the 2000s 
> and 2010s.
> 
> I did not include any Swift applications; we can evaluate that once 
> we have a 
> working Swift compiler with Objective-C bridging.
> 
> 
>     Other lists to look at
> 
>   * https://github.com/jaywcjlove/awesome-swift-macos-apps
>   * https://github.com/serhii-londar/open-source-mac-os-apps
> 
> I also asked ChatGPT for various historical applications, which I 
> then 
> reviewed myself to find some more detailed information and get rid of 
> extraneous information.
> 
> 
>     Objective-C + AppKit
> 
> 
>       Terminals
> 
>   * iTerm2 <https://iterm2.com/> (GitLab
>     <https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2>; GitHub mirror
>     <https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2>; GPL-2.0) -- extremely 
> popular
>     terminal emulator
>       o There are dozens of discussions on Hacker News
>  
> <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=iterm2&sort=byPopularity&type=story>
>         if you want to see users' opinions
>           + Many users claim there are useful features not found in 
> any
>             GNU/Linux terminal emulator
>       o Older versions
>           + 3.6.0 (2025-09-15) -- last version to support 10.15 
> Catalina
>           + 3.0.15 (2017-03-25) -- last version to support 10.8 
> Mountain
>             Lion
>           + Very old versions support 10.5 and 10.7
>       o Possibly difficult parts
>           + It currently includes a decent amount of Swift code;
>             requires macOS 12.4
>           + AppleScript
>           + Built-in web browser
> 
> 
>       Editors
> 
>   * TextMate <https://macromates.com/> (GitHub
>     <https://github.com/textmate/textmate>; GPL-3.0-or-later) --
>     formerly extremely popular text editor
>       o Requires 10.12 Sierra or later
>       o Unmaintained since 2021
>   * SubEthaEdit <https://subethaedit.net/> (GitHub
>     <https://github.com/subethaedit/SubEthaEdit>; MIT license) --
>     real-time collaborative editor
>       o Requires 10.13 High Sierra or later
>       o Unmaintained since 2022
> 
> 
>       PDF documents and LaTeX
> 
>   * Skim <https://skim-app.sourceforge.io/> (SVN
>     <https://svn.code.sf.net/p/skim-app/code/trunk/>; BSD-3-Clause) --
>     PDF reader and annotator
>       o Does not seem to include Swift code
>       o Development started in April 2007
>       o Popular for reading/annotating scientific papers
>       o PreSkim <https://github.com/scris/preskim> -- fork with Big 
> Sur
>         user interface
>   * BibDesk <https://bibdesk.sourceforge.io/> (SVN
>     <https://sourceforge.net/p/bibdesk/svn/HEAD/tree/>) -- BibTeX
>     bibliography editor
>       o Development started in 2002
>       o Does not seem to include Swift code
>       o Possibly difficult parts
>           + AppleScript
>           + Built-in web browser for viewing Google Scholar
>   * TeXshop <https://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/texshop/> (GitHub mirror
>     <https://github.com/TeXShop/TeXShop>) -- LaTeX editor
>       o Development started in 2000
>       o Does not seem to include Swift code
> 
> 
>       Media and graphics
> 
>   * Vienna RSS <https://www.vienna-rss.com/> (GitHub
>     <https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-rss>; Apache-2.0) -- RSS 
> reader
>       o Possible difficulties
>           + Requires WebKit
>   * Cog <https://cog.losno.co/> (GitHub
>     <https://github.com/losnoco/cog>; GPL-2.0) -- Music player
>   * Seashore (GitHub) <https://github.com/robaho/seashore> (GPL-2.0) 
> --
>     Simple image editor
>       o More details
>  
> <https://librearts.org/2019/01/meet-seashore-free-image-editor-for-macos/>
>       o Although originally based on GIMP, most GIMP code has been 
> removed
>       o Discussion on Hacker News
>         <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31051991>
>       o Possible difficulties
>           + Heavy use of CoreGraphics and CoreAnimation
> 
> 
>       Applications where we might be able to convince the author to
>       release the code
> 
>   * Pineapple News 
> <https://www.platinumball.net/pineapple/news/macosx/>
>     -- Usenet newsreader
>       o "This version is totally free, and will not expire. I still 
> use
>         it myself quite a lot, but active development has ceased. If
>         anybody has a burning desire to take over maintenance of the
>         program, send me an e-mail."
>       o I don't think enough people use Usenet for this to be 
> worthwhile
>         if it takes a lot of effort, but given its age it might be 
> easy
>         to port
>   * MailMate <https://freron.com/> -- Email client
>       o It's a very powerful client with low resource usage
>       o Although it is commercial software, all of the features are
>         available in the free version
>       o This is certainly less likely that we could convince the 
> author
>         to release the code, but it is more likely than many other
>         applications
> 
> 

-- 
Patrick Cardona - Pi400 - GNU/Linux (Debian 12 aarch64: RPI OS Lite)
Xorg (1:1.7.1-1.2) - libcairo2 (1.16.0-7+rpt1 arm64)
Window Maker (0.95.9) - GNU Runtime - GWorkspace (1.1.0 - 02 2025) - 
Theme: PISIN - MUA: GNUMail (1.4.0)